Ever wished you had a list of app marketing tools to refer to when you need to promote your app, increase your organic app store traffic or drive more downloads (from quality users!). Well, your prayers have been answered! We’ve compile a list of our favorite tools, resources and sites that will help you hack your way around mobile apps.

App Marketing Hacks

If it’s your first time launching an app on the app stores we know it can be a bit unnerving. Fight the feelings of hesitation and doubt by using some of these tools before and after publishing your app and redirect your energies to acquiring quality users.

App Icon

Source: TheNextWeb

Your app icon is one of the first things people notice about your app, and deserves to be designed right. Here are a few tools that can help you design an icon based off of a logo, or design something from scratch:

If you know you’re way around Photoshop and want to design your own app icon download customizable .psd icon templates from AppIconTemplate.com or PixelResort to make your job so much easier!

Not a design pro? Not problem! Use Canva to create a perfect 1024 x 1024 px icon template, and then add icons, backgrounds or image files.

Want a pro for the job, but strapped for cash? Over on 99 Designs you can host a contest challenging designers to create your new app icon. Select a budget, fill in few details about your app and in seven days you will get as many suggestion from as many designers as you paid for.

Here are a few more tools to get you started on logo design, which can always be a good place to start when thinking of your companies’ visual identity & icon:

Editor’s Pick: Graphic Springs: Choose from the gallery of thousands of professionally designed logo graphics and edit them in an easy to use logo maker. If you’re happy with your logo pay only $39.99 to download the files.

Design Mantic: Designing a logo has never been easier – just enter your company name to get started. And if you like the logo design, buy it for just $29.

Free Logo Services: If your objective is to take your app offline, this is the website you are looking for. The same three step method as all the DIY logo makers but they facilitated the buying process of business cards, clothing, stationary and many other products.

Logo Type Maker: May not be the most modifiable logo we would suggest. However, their logo designs sometimes stand out of the crowd. Repetition yields perfection? You may find many similar logos which gives you the feeling they have tried to perfect each logo offered.

Now, before you can upload your app icon, you’ll also need to provide various sizes. To accomplish this task quickly, we love using Angry Marmot – you simply upload your icon, generate the various sizes and download a compressed folder containing all sizes needed for iOS 7, 8, Android and other stores.

App Screenshots

Source: Lovoo app

App screenshots are used to “sell” your app and, on average, you should include five different app screens, focusing on the most important features. While you can simple upload a standard screenshot, you can also create custom branded screenshots that include promotional copy and real usage scenarios. Here are a few tools we love for creating stunning screenshots that grab attention:

Editor’s Choice: Launchkit: When it comes to making screenshots for the Apple Store, this is the best tool we’ve found. Simple, fast, easy to use and completely free! The platform allow you to select between different backgrounds and alter texts to your liking.

PlaceIt: Want to wrap your screenshots in more personal, real-life context? Choose from a variety of images featuring people using Android and iOS devices in different environments.

MockUPhone: If you want to place your screenshots into a device, this is the tool to use. One click to wrap app screenshots in Android, Apple, Tablets devices and PCs. If you’d rather use a smartphone, we like iWrapper (for iOS)

App Preview / Demo Videos

In addition to screenshots, the stores also allow you add a app preview video to promote your app. Here are a few sites offering DIY, no coding or editing skills needed video production. Costs are very low compared to the value of the video you will create. Keep in mind that a video posted on YouTube or Vimeo is an extra social channel to address:

PowToon: allows you to create animated presentations or promotional videos.

Make Web Video: If you are looking to produce an app promotional video showing directly how the app functions, this is a great tool. With many templates, this website is ideal to promote your app on a budget.

So you’ve got all the elements for an awesome app store listing, but not ready to press publish?App Snippet Preview is an online tool which helps you visualize how your mobile app listing will look in both Android and iOS stores. You fill in the required, upload some pictures and voila! What you view is as close to reality as it gets to your future customer’s eyes.

App Store Optimization (ASO)

Once your app is published you can now start to focus on App Store Optimization – researching keywords, monitoring your competitors, generating app reviews and increasing the number of downloads – all in the effort to increase you apps popularity and ranking. Here are some of our favorite tools for getting a jump start on ASO.

AppTweak: Get a summary of your ASO score with these free reports! Review your app’s strengths & weaknesses, find the best keywords to increase your ranking in the app stores and optimize to drive more organic downloads. Plus, view case studies from the top app to understand the success (or failure) behind newly released mobile apps.

Sensor Tower: is a powerful ASO tool that enables developers to discover the most relevant keywords with the least competition yet highest search volume. Sign up for the daily email to receive status reports on your app & keyword ranking. Other features include competitor keyword analysis and review analysis on your own applications.

AppBot: Appbot also takes the effort out of tracking your Google Play and App Store reviews, rankings and keywords for all countries, by emailing them to you daily (Sign up is free).

SearchMan: Use this free tool to view how your description, app name and app pitch is performing on separate stores. Know the volume, hits, keyword efficiency index and your own rank regarding the keyword. Also view the graph of your search visibility. More importantly, have a list of your probable competitors with their stats. SearchMan send you daily free emails with a resume of all of the above. Most importantly, get your store ranking in relevance to the most keyword used in your description.

AppBrain: Even though this tool is just for Android, the information offered may be used to optimize the app for both stores. In addition to the normal stats like user ratings, installs and competitor list, App Brain has its own rating out of 100, letting you skim through your competitors to find out who is your biggest threat. The rating is formed by averaging the negative and positive reviews with other criteria App Brain decides. If you sign up and claim the app, you get to see what they call the Apptimizer. For instance, get another rating for your APK file size, permissions requests, supported devices, description length, detailed keyword analyses and much more.

App Annie: Why not tailor general and broad data? App Annie not only allows you to view most trending apps in different store in various countries, but also allows you to have a combination of filters. A cool feature is to type a name of an app (why not yours) and view the normal stats offered by other analytic providers, as well as the estimated app revenue. You may also view more information about the developer. Viewing data is one thing, App Annie has a download button for each of rank history, keywords/ASO and user reviews. So why not download the data and compare apps to one another or even to yourself!

There you have it – our list of the best tools to market your app!Do you have any other hacks to share? Comment below and we’ll add it to the list.

This post has been updated from it’s original version, posted Jan 15, 2015

This is a very good information.It helps us to know about all wish we had the ultimate list of app marketing hacks to help us design better apps, increase our organic app store traffic and drive more downloads .Thanks you for your great post.